Hitchens cancelled an appearance in Toronto earlier this month during a book tour for his memoir Hitch-22.

In a statement, Hitchens said:

"I have been advised by my physician that I must undergo a course of chemotherapy on my esophagus. This advice seems persuasive to me. I regret having had to cancel so many engagements at such short notice."

Hitchens made the journey from Trotskyite to advocate of democratic rights and freedom and incurred the enmity of radicals such as George Galloway and Norman Finklestein along the way.

The Washington Post has found pictures of accused Russian spy Anna Chapman that she posted to a Russian social networking site called, "Odnoklassniki." One has the caption, "Russia, Moscow. My favorite place on earth, my native capital!"

If she is what authorities allege, Russian spies have gotten a lot dumber since John Le Carre wrote about them.

Their shared views about the "Zionist threat" will no doubt give these extremists with common cause many happy hours of conversation. Maybe a few glasses of wine and schnapps..and who knows where it could lead..?

NUPGE is comprised of 11 component unions, including some of the largest public service unions in Canada, such as the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) and the BC Government and Service Employees Union as well as the Canadian Union of Brewery and General Workers.

Rather than focus exclusively on workers' rights, NUPGE has placed a significant amount of focus on the Harper government's approach to International Affairs and other policies that have nothing to do with labour conditions for Canadian union members.

Politics all paid for with union members' dues.

News like this reminds me that we pay way too much for public employees and beer in this country.

It appears there was a great deal of concern among the people at the Toronto Community Mobilization Network, one of the organizational clearing houses for G20 protests, about protesters sexually assaulting each other.

Given some of the violence perpetrated by a number of the protesters, these seem to be valid concerns.

The protesters must be concerned that the agents of state oppression (police) who are actually trained to investigate and bring charges regarding these offences might not understand the actual causes of sexual assault, which are stated as:

"Sexual assault is rooted in broader systems of oppression such as patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism, transphobia, homophobia, and colonialism – and is not separable from them in how and why it is perpetrated, experienced and dealt with."

I'll bet you never knew that capitalism, transphobia, patriarchy and colonialism etc. were the causes of sexual assault in North America.

Monday, June 28, 2010

The right to free speech and peaceful protest is essential, but the issues the protesters profess to be concerned about got lost in a cacophony of violence and noise.

But free speech and peaceful protest are elements of a free society upon which the state authorities have no right to infringe.

Which brings the conduct and decision making abilities of Toronto's Chief of Police Bill Blair into question.

On Saturday, violent protesters were allowed to rampage in the city, unabated by police, while the next day, peaceful protesters were attacked by police without provocation.

Early Sunday morning raids that arrested a number of protesters believed to be members of the violent "Black Bloc" may have contributed to the quiet Sunday. That is to be commended. But what possible excuse can Blair provide for allowing violent protests, such as these, to go on without police intervention and what possible explanation can he provide for the peaceful protesters singing the national anthem being attacked by police, as you can see in the video above.

Following Pride Toronto's flip-flop regarding allowing the participation of the contentious anti-Israel group "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid," Councilors and mayoral candidates Giorgio Mammoliti and Rob Ford will be putting forward a motion in July to retroactively defund Pride and require them to repay funding the event received from the City of Toronto.

Rob Ford told Eye On A Crazy Planet:

"Unfortunately, there is no City Council meeting until after the Parade has taken place. I will be seconding a motion at the next Council meeting to make Pride Toronto pay back the money that the City has provided them."

Georgio Mammoliti put forward the original motion in May, seconded by Councilor David Shiner, to require that City funding be conditional on Pride prohibiting participation by QuAIA. In a narrow vote, 23 to 21, the motion was forwarded to the City's Executive Committee for a recommendation and was withdrawn when Pride agreed to ban the term "Israeli Apartheid" from the event.

But with its last minute reversal, done in a time period in which there will be no City Council meetings until this year's Pride festival is over, many councilors feel betrayed and angry about the apparent dissemblance by the Pride Committee.

This time the Pride Committee, with its repeated flip-flops about allowing QuAIA to participate, may have pushed their luck too far. Councilor Mammoliti's proposal, if passed, will not only require Pride to return the funds, but will end City funding for future Pride events.

It is possible that the vote may break down the same way it did in the earlier vote. But this time things may be different. Councilors who wanted to defer this matter in May may not want their implied support for the anti-Israel group "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" to be an issue used against them in in the rapidly approaching fall election.

The Mayoral candidates seem to agree. All the major ones have taken strong positions against participation in Pride by "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" with the exception of five foot-one Joe Pantalone, who, as Deputy Mayor and ideological compadre to the unpopular retiring incumbent, stands about as much chance of winning the election as he does of making the starting line-up of The Chicago Bulls.

Councillor Mammoliti's proposal, to be put forward in July reads:

1. That City Council directs the City Clerk to advise the Pride organizers that the City of Toronto’s 2010 funding and support be revoked and returned retroactively to the City because Pride did not invoke the City of Toronto’s anti-discriminating policies by allowing Queers Against Israel Apartheid to participate in this year’s Pride Parade.

2. The City of Toronto rejects any and all future applications from Pride for funding and support.

On his website, Ford is quoted as saying:

“Something has gone seriously wrong with the organizers of Pride to make such an irresponsible decision,” added Ford. “We took them at their word that there wouldn’t be any hate groups in the parade, and they’ve now gone back on that. City Council can’t stand for this."

When Mammoliti and Ford's motion comes up for a vote next month, we'll see whether Council lets itself be manipulated by Pride Toronto or not.

Since Israel does not have racial segregation and has free elections for all its citizens, regardless of ethnic and religious status, and a free press with an independent judiciary, it obviously doesn't meet the conditions of racial segregation and disenfranchisement that characterized Apartheid-era South Africa,

"Apartheid" is an inflammatory term being falsely applied to Israel by dishonest, politically and ideologically motivated partisans to motivate and inflame hatred.

But it's false, so in the spirit of Truth in Advertising, "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" should rename themselves to reflect the reality of what they are about.

Toronto - Mayoral candidate Rob Ford is outraged Pride Toronto has reversed its decision to allow Queers Against Israeli Apartheid to march in the parade. "There is no room for hate speech in the City of Toronto, and I'm going to do everything I can to stop this," said Ford.

Ford supported the original motion put forward by his Council colleague Giorgio Mammoliti to withdraw funding to the parade if they allowed Queers Against Israeli Apartheid to participate. "Pride Toronto just doesn't get it - this taxpayer funded parade is not about international conflicts," Ford added. "The parade is a celebration, not an opportunity for an aggressive fringe group to spread their hateful message."

In 2009 Pride Toronto received nearly $300,000 tax dollars for the parade, policing and clean-up. "The Santa Claus Parade, the St. Patrick's Day Parade the Greek Parade and many others don't receive public funding," Ford added. "It is astonishing to me that in this day and age, Pride Toronto is going to allow such a hateful message at their event," he concluded.

Hardly surprising, but notable that Maude Barlow has characterized the G20 divide in such a way. Barlow is the National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians, an organization that has a lot of overlap with our old friends at rabble.ca, the union-financed Marxist-leaning propaganda site. She refers to the G20 conference and what it represents as:

"a class spilt, a race split, to some great extent a gender split that's as great as any in history in terms of the difference between those who have power and those who don't."

I fear Ms. Barlow's understanding of trade agreements is about as comprehensive as her understanding of history. She said these things in Toronto, the most multicultural city in the world, where people from all races, religions and economic classes participate in a democracy. She said these things in a society where all citizens vote and in a free market economy where a person who is middle class today can create a company that gives them the potential to be a billionaire. She said these things in a democracy where any citizen has the potential to become a head of state. She says this at a time when the most powerful person in the world in a visible minority within his own country who emerged from modest beginnings.

Ms Barlow should familiarize herself with the history of Europe and Asia and their history of insurmountable class differences, rule by aristocracy, and legalized subjugation of women and minorities, all of which the G20 countries have overcome, before she makes such absurd utterances.

What's frightening is that her audience of brainwashed dupes probably accepts every word that she says without question.

Barlow has done some good work in making people aware of how water resources are allocated and are diminishing in certain parts of the world. Clearly she's over-reaching with her speech at the June 18 "People's Summit" in Toronto. Sometimes it's best to stick to what you know.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The Board of Toronto Pride has voted to reverse its decision to prohibit the use of the term "Israeli Apartheid" in this years' Pride festival. They have replaced it with a new policy requires participating groups to sign an agreement stating they will comply with City of Toronto's Declaration of a Non-Discrimination Policy.

The ban on the use of the term "Israeli Apartheid" came after much controversy surrounding the participation of a group that calls itself "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid."

After a previous flip-flop, Pride prohibited the use of the term after threats to withhold City funding and support and objections from corporate sponsors of the event if the group was allowed to participate.

With the latest change, Pride jeopardizes its municipal funding and sponsorships for future events.

The Canadian Jewish News reports that an offer has been extended to Jack Layton and select members of the NDP caucus, including Libby Davies, to visit Israel and learn the Israeli perspective on the mid-east conflict first hand.

After reading Coyle's column, the first thought that occurred to me was, 'How does one get a job as a columnist for the Toronto Star?' It employs Coyle, ran Antonia Zerbisias for years, so obviously the ability to express rational thoughts is not a criterion.

Democracy is tyranny of the majority, my friend.Vote conservative - time to end years of corruption and waster courtesy of the Liberal party.You could vote NDP or Green, but you might as well throw your vote away, since they'll never get into power.

Which he later followed up with:

Gah, yah, I wasn't 100% there when I posted, haha :) Stupid politics and fat fingers of mine. Oh believe me, I know our government is full of crap. Some days it is staggering...

Few details have been released so far. It should be interesting to see where this goes.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Members over at the humourless website for embittered "progressives," rabble.ca, founded by Judy Rebick, are all for the visit to Canada by hate mongering Iman Zakir Naik, which is one of the few times they agree with Jonathan Kay.

The rabble folk seem to agree with Zaik to a large degree, at least as far as his views about Jews are concerned. As far as some of them are concerned, his banning is all part of the evil Zionist/B'nai Brith conspiracy, which is a popular motif among the "humanitarians" at rabble.

There isn't a lot I can say in favour of the lunatic fringe of the NDP, but one thing I absolutely adore about them is that they don't seem to be able to stand in front of a video camera without saying something so mind-bogglingly idiotic that it completely undermines their credibility.

a) Face Value: Harper is condemning Davies for her biased and ill-informed attempt to delegitimize the only democracy in the middle east and her outright hostility to Israel by wanting to harm it through sanctions.

b) Obvious Political Agenda #1: Any time you can weaken your political opponents, it's good for you, and Davies' idiotic performance was a vulnerability of the NDP's abundantly opportune for exploitation.

c) Obvious Political Agenda #2: All the other parties had come to an agreement about the terms related to the documents pertaining to the Afghan Detainees turned over to Afghan forces by the Canadian military. The NDP was the one party that opposed those terms and was hoping to use it as an issue to attack the government. By turning around and picking at the open wound of the NDP's that Davies inflicted, Harper was able to deflect from the Afghan issue.

d) Not-so-Obvious Political Agenda #1: An NDP/Liberal merger, of which there have been rumours aplenty, presented a potential problem for the Tories (although there are convincing arguments to the contrary). By highlighting just how looney the Looney Left Davies faction of the NDP is, it precludes the Liberals' ability to merge with a party whose views are so off the mainstream.

e) Conspiracy Theory #1: Harper is an agent of the Evil Zionists. A popular and consistent theory among the far-left fringes of the NDP. No one with a modicum of intelligence takes it seriously, but that criterion excludes the far-left fringes of the NDP.

All pretty straight forward and lots of people could have anticipated those explanations. even the crazy conspiracy theory.

But Judy Rebick, prominent left-wing commentator and the founder of the Marxist-leaning, union-financed propaganda organ rabble.ca has come up with a theory about Harper's reaction that no (sane) observer could have expected.

At a recent forum sponsored by rabble, Rebick provided the audience with this theory about the motivation for Harper's condemnation of Libby Davies over her comments suggesting Israel has no legitimacy as a country and her calling for sanctions against Canada's most reliable mid-east ally.

Rebick said it is because...

Stephen Harper is a sexist.

Now thatone, I didn't see coming.

You can see it in this video:

There are number of utterly preposterous, hypocritical and frankly rather stupid allegations that Rebick makes in this video that reflect the thinking of the far-left fringes of the NDP that should be examined in a bit of detail.

By now, readers of this blog are familiar with the Libby Davies video that
Rebick unintelligently characterizes as a "set-up." Rebick also is unapologetic about her belief that the State of Israel had no right to be founded in 1948.

Rebick goes on to say Davies got "mixed up" about the dates. A view of the Davies video would seemingly refute that and for someone who has taken such a vociferous position against Israel to be so ignorant, or "mixed up" about the facts says a great deal but there's more. Much more.

Rebick states that "the democratic system in Canada is one of the narrowest and weakest in the world."

One wonders to which other democratic system Rebick is comparing Canada's. Would it be to Turkey's vibrant democracy that outlaws discussion of the Armenian Genocide they continue to deny? Perhaps the Iranian democracy, where candidates must be approved by the Supreme Council of mullahs? I suppose she prefers American democracy and in this I would agree, I think we would benefit form a separation of the Executive and Legislative branches like in the US. But I suspect America wasn't what Rebick had in mind.

Rebick then states that Stephen Harper is an "autocrat" who has gotten "rid of almost all our democratic rights."

What rights Rebick is talking about that we have been rid of are unclear. None have been eliminated to my knowledge. Canadians have free speech, free and open elections, and an independent judiciary with rule of law. We still have a country where Judy Rebick can harp and criticize and even slander the highest elected official in this country without any criminal repercussion. She probably is referring to the "democratic right" of her and public figures she agrees with to attack and criticize others without being criticized in return.

Obviously, Ms. Rebick's understanding of Democratic Rights leaves much to be desired.

At 4:45 in the video, Rebick states, "The attack on Libby is a sexist attack as well as an anti-democratic attack, an attack on reducing freedom of speech in this country."

(I'll assume Rebick meant an 'attack on freedom of speech' rather than an "attack on reducing freedom of speech" since her meaning, as stupid as her argument is, is that Harper is against free speech.)

Does that mean that Bob Rae and Marc Garneau, who have also called for Davies' resignation, are anti-democratic, free-speech hating, sexists as well?

To to put it in a nutshell, Rebick believes that public figures like her and Libby Davies, who seek to influence public opinion, should be allowed to say what they like and criticize whatever and whomever they like, in any way, including baseless nonsense, and yet they should be free of any criticism in return. And if you do criticize or in the case of Libby Davies, even draw attention to what they are saying and advocating, you are "attacking free speech."

Rebick makes what is clearly the most hypocritical and what may well be the stupidest argument I have ever heard within the realm of public discourse.

What is particularly worrisome about Davies and Rebick is that a great deal of their anger about Davies' comments coming to the forefront of public attention is about the views they hold being exposed.

Davies is not being mischaracterized about her views. She is being publicised for them. That she is upset about her positions being exposed to the public is exactly what the public has to fear from Davies and those within the NDP whose support she commands.

According to Ezra Levant, Marci McDonald‘s screed, The Armageddon Factor: The rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, has had book sales so poor that its publisher, Random House, is unlikely to recoup its advance.

Vilification of political participation by people with Christian beliefs got McDonald lots of air-time on the major Canadian television networks and print exposure in the national press.

McDonald's contention was that conservative Christians were secretly steering the current Canadian government's political agenda. But critics such as Levant have made an obvious observation that eluded Ms McDonald; religious Christians, aside from being an extremely diverse constituency without a unified agenda, have as much right to political participation as anyone else. If it had been any other group that McDonald had characterized in such a fashion, she would have immediately been labeled as a hate-monger and bigot.

But conspiracy theory aside, Levant and others were able to sink The Armageddon Factor with a far more damaging charge, which they were able to abundantly establish; that of Marci McDonald's shoddy journalism replete with factual errors and preposterous conclusions unsupported by evidence.

Monday, June 21, 2010

One of America's most prominent conservative intellectuals, Shelby Steele, discusses in The Wall Street Journal, that the West fails to understand the nature of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and what it represents.

Kevin Neish, one of the Canadian participants on the Mavi Marmara's attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, is still having trouble keeping his story straight. In fact there are so many inconsistencies to his recounting of events, it's hard to keep track of them all.

(I may or may not update this later. Neish's credibility is so nonexistent on this matter it may not be worth the effort, but here's one more just for now:)

At the 7:11 point of the video below, Kevin Neish, talking to an audience in Vancouver on June 18, 2010, describing the violence between the Turkish activists and the Israelis boarding the Mavi Marmara says, "I didn't see the first shots, so don't even ask me."

But in his interview with Carol MacNeil on June 3, 2010 at the 7:25 point of the interview you can see through this link, in claiming that the Turks didn't fire at the Israelis, Neish says "there was no gunfire from the ship."

He has consistently said the Turks on board the ships didn't use guns, but Neish has now admitted he "didn't see the first shots" so how would he know who fired them and where they came from?

What strikes me as incredible is that every time Neish retells this story, it changes to suit his purpose, which is the hallmark of a pathological liar.

Evidently Neish didn't learn a lesson of which people with integrity are well aware; Tell the truth, that way you don't have to keep track of your lies.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Dieter Doneit-Henderson, a former supporter of Rob Ford, whose desperation for drugs made him sound like an addict, continues to call and hassle the candidate. He begs for help in getting medication to manage his pain. Ford agrees to try to help him and to end the lengthy call, says he'll try to get him something on the street.

It's a 50 minute phone call for a front-running mayoral candidate who has far better and more important things to do. Was he planning to actually buy drugs or was he trying to get off the call?

The caller repeatedly harasses Ford and begs him for help. It seems obvious to me that Ford was trying to pacify a pathetic individual and is actually putting himself out to help a desperate human being.

If Ford was “set up”, I doubt it would have been by George Smitherman, because at 39:28 in the call, when Ford suggests buying OxyContin on the streets, the fellow taping the call says, “the last time I bought a street drug, Rob, was in 2001 with George Smitherman.”

This claim on tape is obviously just heresay and has no support other than the statement of the person who made it. But it is interesting, both in of itself, and that this part of the incident has largely escaped media attention.

According to The Globe and Mail, a spokesperson for the Smitherman campaign denied that he had ever met Mr. Doneit-Henderson.

I don’t actually think Ford was set up by anyone other than the man who taped the call. One thing about situations like this is that you always have to ask yourself, who is the person who would gain the most from harming Ford?

Now, who would be furious enough at Rob Ford to do something like that? It all looks pretty rocky to me.

This image was originally posted to Flickr by Tom Spender at http://flickr.com/photos/58579437@N00/532148254. It was reviewed on 18:15, 19 January 2009 (UTC) by the FlickreviewR robot and confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.

Not many, but a few people who have accused this cartoon parody of being "racist." It didn't strikes me as being anything but a satire about China's political system, not its people. If The Simpsons was made in Asia, would we view it as a racist depiction of how stupid Americans are?

Wait a minute.. most of the animation for The Simpsons is done in Asia.

Kevin Neish, the middle-aged British Columbia -based "activist" who lied to Carol MacNeil during his interview with her on CBC TV is giving a little talk at the Vancouver Public Library this evening.

I don't live near Vancouver, but if I did, I would ask him about his lies. It would be funny to watch him squirm.

It's still a picture of Lenin, but if you're going on physical appearance, the only way you could tell the difference is that Lenin looks younger and has a great deal more of a twinkle of intelligence behind his eyes than Kevin.

On his facebook page, Tarek Fatah has written an open letter warning about an impending visit to Toronto by a radical Muslim cleric, Zakir Naik, who Fatah reports as having said, ""every Muslim should be a terrorist." Whether this was intended as ironic is something I can't say, but radical Muslim clerics are seldom known for their sense of irony.

The text of Fatah's letter is below:

Friends,

Zakir Naik is an Indian Islamist firebrand who has preached hatred towards non-Muslims and who is on record of saying, "every Muslim should be a terrorist." This jihadi televangelist was to speak in Britain to tens of thousands of radical Islamists, but he has now been banned from entering the UK.

With a trip to London now out of question, what does good old Zakir Naik do? He gets invited to a Toronto Islamic Conference where is touted to be the "featured speaker" on July 2, 2010 at Toronto's Metro Convention Centre. Here is the link: http://journeyconference.com/Who says we Canadians are not suckers for punishment. Will we welcome this hate-monger or will our government do the right thing and tell this ugly preacher to take his hate somewhere else? Only time will tell.

I should never lead an item with a headline like the one for this piece. If there's one thing I've learned about politics, it's the infinite capacity for stupidity and weirdness from the fringes on the far right and far left.

But how disappointing would it have been if the NDP Socialist Caucus had anything but a manifesto? And as Libby Davies has recently reminded us, the Looney Left rarely disappoints in that regard.

Some quotes from their considered document tells us how the state should control all means of major production, all banking, distribution and exchange, or basically, everything except the vegetable patch you grow in your back yard. Although that would soon be the collective back yard, since along with Capitalism and Free Enterprise, private property would likely be the next thing on their lengthy list of things to abolish.

In their own words:

The global capitalist system is today in the throes of a massive economic, political, environmental and social crisis. If the capitalist system continues to exist, growing poverty, violence, war and repression and environmental degradation will be the fate of working people across Canada and around the world. The Socialist Caucus of the NDP does not believe that it is possible for working people anywhere to achieve significant and permanent social and political progress without transcending the limits of capitalism. A prerequisite is the establishment of Socialist governments all across the country, federally and provincially.

By a socialist system we mean the replacement of the private ownership of the major means of production, distribution, banking and exchange with social ownership under workers' self-management and democratic government. A socialist NDP government would as a first order of priority institute a system of economic planning with the objective of satisfying human needs rather than private profit.

And we know it's a great idea, because it worked out so well for the USSR and Communist Albania.

I've read about the Workers' Paradise the NDP Socialist Caucus has planned for us. It was in George Orwell's 1984. And it wasn't pretty.

This is part of the NDP the Liberal Party was considering merging with. The Libby Davies fiasco has done the country a tremendous service by focusing the spotlight on the lunacy that would edge closer to the halls of power if that merger were to occur.

On the bright side, it's not like they don't have any fun in store for us. The NDP Socialist Caucus website also has a prominent header titled Cuba Tours.

There you can see glorious life as dictated by their other inspiration....

If you have about 1 3/4 hours to kill, here's a chance to watch the life the NDP Socialist Caucus would build for us, given the chance (This remarkable production includes a young Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasance):

David Katz, the young journalist who filmed the impromptu interview with Libby Davies responded on his blog to Dobkin's attack.

David mentions that he wasn't doing it as some covert "pro-Israeli" act and there is nothing to suggest he is being anything but completely honest.

I saw the video on June 9 and sent it to a number of CanWest reporters (and posted a link to it in a few select locations online), pointing out how Davies' reference to Israeli "occupation" beginning in 1948 in effect is a denial of Israel's legitimacy. She was clearly asked whether she thought it began in 67 or 48 and she said "48." I also pointed out that it was significant that she, the Deputy Leader of the NDP, expressed support for a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel.

I received almost immediate responses from two CanWest reporters and two days later, an editorial titled "Haters' Test" appeared in the CanWest paper, The Ottawa Citizen, condemning Davies for her positions stated in the video. Davies responded with a dubious "apology" on her website after that editorial appeared and then the story broke as a national news item, led by CanWest, on the following Tuesday, June 15.

Between this matter and the Kevin Neish expose I was working on (which was the basis for Micheal Ross' June 15 article in The National Post), a friend suggested I start a blog, so Eye on a Crazy Planet came into being late Sunday night, June 13, 2010 (with the first post up just after midnight on Monday morning) with the Davies piece as its first post.

I should note, only the editors and reporters at CanWest know whether it was the information I provided that led to their covering the Davies video, or whether they also received the information independently of me, but the ones I corresponded with hadn't seen it before I sent it.

Sorry if I helped get you more attention than you wanted, David, but you definitely got a kick-start to your career in journalism.

An interesting battle within the ranks of the federal NDP has started to boil into public view, thanks to Libby Davies and her YouTube performance where she implicitly questioned Israel’s legitimacy and explicitly supported a boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Canada’s democratic ally in the middle east.

The controversy surrounding Libby Davies throws the NDP into disarray in a battle between the realists, represented by MPs like Thomas Mulcair and Paul Dewar and the strident anti-capitalism, anti-globalization Looney Left, who see Davies as their champion.

And Jack Layton, who leans towards the realists, is trying to hold it all together while his party is spiralling out of control.

The first casualty of the Davies controversy was the talks of the merger between the Liberals and the NDP. The idea of merging with a party with the NDP’s credibility problems was already facing a backlash within Liberal ranks. But with Davies’ intemperate comments and Liberal Foreign Affairs Critic Bob Rae calling for her resignation, it’s safe to say the idea of a merger has been shelved for the foreseeable future.

The NDP as a whole and Layton in particular hope this issue will go away, but it won’t until its political capital for the other parties has been expended and that hasn’t happened just yet.The problem is that Davies, as pointed out in yesterday’s post, has still failed to clarify her position on the boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

She really doesn’t want to.

If she repudiates the sanctions/boycott, she disappoints and disillusions her followers and can accurately be called a hypocrite. If she doesn’t, she contradicts her party policy, the position stated by her party’s leader, and causes an even greater problem for the NDP.

What is very interesting is that the competing factions in the NDP have publicly pulled knives and drawn blood against each other.

The National Post reported the following regarding Thomas Mulcair’s criticism of Davies:

Mr. Mulcair said that Ms. Davies, who could not immediately be reached for comment, should also apologize and retract her comments supporting a boycott. He said it is particularly “egregious” since she is a deputy leader of the party.“As much as it’s difficult, if any individual member of Parliament goes off-script on any issue of policy that is well-defined by the party, it would be a problem,” said Mr. Mulcair. “But that problem is of course compounded in the case of someone who putatively, with the title that she holds, would give more weight to these views that are not the views of the party.”

The Montreal Gazette reported that Dewar said,

“"The issue is about policy and who speaks for our party, I think it's clear (to) Ms. Davies, now that she lets the critic and the leader speak on those."

But on the other side, Murray Dobkin wrote the following in a column at rabble.ca regarding the video that got Davies into trouble. Rabble is the union-financed Marxist-leaning website published by Libby Davies' spouse, Kim Elliott.

“the interview appeared on YouTube. But in 24 hours it had gone nowhere -- just 28 views. Then the most vociferous supporter of Israel in the NDP caucus, Thomas Mulcair, got wind of it and it escalated out of control. He went on a relentless campaign to punish Libby. The spin he helped create was that if Libby believed the occupation began in 1948 then she, ipso facto, believes that Israel has no right to exist.”

Dobkin may be one of the more obtuse political commentators in Canada, and there may be no evidence to support Dobkin’s allegation as being anything but his own invention, but he does reflect a point of view consistent with the radical fringe that supports Davies.

(To toot my own horn a bit, the chronology of this controversy is that after the video was posted to YouTube by David Katz, it was soon seen by Voltaire’s Ghost, the author of this blog, who notified a number of writers at Canwest newspapers about the video and its implication that Israel does not have a right to exist and her support for sanctions against Israel, in contravention of NDP policy. Canwest reporters were the ones to break this story in the mainstream media.)

In the same column, Dobkin goes on:

“Jack Layton should back off, tell Thomas Mulcair to quit exposing the party to public ridicule, and maybe consider taking a stand, with Libby, on behalf of the Palestinians of Gaza.”

Who prevails within the NDP remains to be seen, but the one thing that’s certain is that the big winners from all this are the Liberals. Even though Stephen Harper is doing the heavy lifting of attacking Davies about her remarks, it’s the Liberals who will benefit from a political crisis that hurts the NDP.

And with recent numbers that showed Michael Ignatieff was polling almost at par with Jack Layton, the Liberals have a strong interest in pursuing this matter and making Davies sink her party further by forcing her to explicitly clarify her position on sanctions against Israel.

As footnote, I read an interesting theory by blogger Steve Janke, who believes Bob Rae is using this to advance the merger between the Liberals and the NDP by using this as a wedge issue to drive the virulent, extremist elements out of the NDPhttp://stevejanke.com/archives/302676.php

I disagree with that assessment. As nice as that would be, they make up such a core component of that party, I don’t think Layton feels he can afford to lose them. Nor am I convinced he isn’t sympathetic to them.

UPDATE: 4 pm - As an aside, there were a number of posts to Bob Rae's facebook page over the last couple of days congratulating him for his stand against Davies, some of which he (or whomever maintains the page for him) responded to. As of now, all the Davies references on his facebook page have been removed.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

For those who missed President Obama's speech yesterday, you can see it here. The White House posted it on YouTube.

I like Obama. He has done something about health care in the US which I think is progressive [no, not "progressive" meaning "I'm a Marxist but use this as a code word," "progressive" meaning "making progress".] At least he was able to do something where so many others haven't. No President comes into office without difficult situations to deal with, be he really did get handed a lot at once that wasn't his fault.

The world's economy was haywire, Iran is building an A bomb, Israel was blasting Gaza and America was, and is, fighting two wars, one in each of Afghanistan and Iraq, or as I view it, one war on two fronts. He had "enemy combatant ants" in Guantanamo, which he had promised to release or try, but realized, once in office, that that was a lot easier said than done.

All-in-all, a lot to deal with.

He's made good choices about his Cabinet positions and has managed things fairly well so far. He hasn't demonstrated the deft political skills of Bill Clinton, but on the other hand, he's not going to be the indecisive, ineffectual president Jimmy Carter was.

Without commenting on the substance of his speech last night, which dealt mainly with the crisis surrounding the BP oil spill, what struck me was his tone and demeanour.

Obama usually exudes confidence; often almost to the point of seeming smug. But last night, there was something different. He seemed nervous.

That of itself was unnerving to me. How dangerous is this oil spill going to be and when will it be stopped? Obviously no one has that answer yet, but when Obama's scared, I'm not happy.

I just hope it was all just because Michelle told him he has to stop smoking..or else...!